Dam Busting

How to deal with the dams on the Pootatuck River

As Tom pointed out over on Trout Underground, the Elwha Dam on the Elwha River is being removed to help restore native Salmon runs. Great news for the future of this fishery and certainly a blueprint to follow up and down the Pacific Coast. Similar progress is being made on the Penobscot River in Maine.

While I'm all for dam removal our current methods are far too mundane to garner much interest beyond conservationists. Who can get behind dam removal if it's done with a jackhammer and a backhoe? Without broad support for dam removal, it's gonna be a generation before we make much progress.

If we really want to get the public excited about the notion of dam removal we need to take our cues from 4th of July celebrations. There's nothing that flag-waving, red-blooded American's like more than seeing something blown up.* Get a large volume of explosives, mix with some patriotic song, add flyovers of military aircraft and you've got the recipe for broad based support for Dam Busting. We could make it quite the event with live HD telecasts, bleachers, box seats and, of course, peanuts, popcorn and beer. I see a real economic development and entertainment opportunity here.

Perhaps I should call Spielberg to see if he wants to put on a show. Actually, this sounds like something FOX might carry.

Note:
* Well, the ONLY thing they like more is blowing something up themselves.